


Sitting by the Fire With an Old Fling

by toyhto



Series: An Old Fling [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon if you think about the Netflix show, With hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22541620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: They meet again after the years have passed.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: An Old Fling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626970
Comments: 57
Kudos: 332





	Sitting by the Fire With an Old Fling

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I'm so glad I managed to write something about them that isn't fluff or crack-ish and in which they aren't idiots, or I mean, they are a little, but so are we all.
> 
> I've only seen the Netflix show, so this story is probably AU and I just don't know it. But who cares. You can find me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com) and say hi!

It was a quiet night with the moon hanging low on the sky, almost full. The air smelled of winter and the path under Roach’s hooves was covered with dead leaves. Geralt patted her on the neck, stopped her and got down off her. Someone had been following him for days. Not a monster, though, but a human with a horse, moving so slowly it would have been ridiculously easy to shake them off. Maybe that was what had been holding Geralt back. Maybe he was curious about who was stupid enough to follow him when there clearly wasn’t a chance of catching him.  
  
He unsaddled Roach, brushed her and gave her water and food. They were both getting older, Roach and him, one faster than the other. He would have to get a new horse soon. He rested his palm against Roach’s neck for a moment. Giving up on a horse had become more difficult over time, while giving up on people had become easier. He didn’t really want to think about what that told about him.  
  
“We’ll stay here for tonight,” he told Roach. “Maybe whoever is following us will finally come to greet us.” He didn’t have much hope, though. He had a weird feeling about this, maybe something the wind carried, or a memory. There was something familiar about the footsteps he heard when the wind was right. He had even amused himself by saying that it must be the reaper finally coming for him. Roach hadn’t been amused at all. The stupid horse had grown fond of Geralt.  
  
“Try to get some sleep,” he told her. “I’ll stay awake and see that whoever is coming for us doesn’t hurt you.” Not that anyone would have had a reason to want to hurt Roach. But people rarely needed a reason for hurting someone.  
  
He built a fire, laid his bedroll on the ground and sat down on it, watching the shy flames. At least it wasn’t raining tonight. Tomorrow they would turn to the South, he and Roach. The mysterious man on a slow horse had had his chance. Maybe it was just someone who had heard about Geralt and wanted to know what he looked like but didn’t have the guts to come to say hello. That was probably for the best. Geralt was so much better in the stories than in real life.  
  
A lonely bird was singing somewhere. Roach was napping already. Geralt’s toes were a little cold but he didn’t bother to move them closer to the fire. Sometimes he wondered if that was what time would do to him, if he was going to slowly go cold, starting from his toes and reaching for his heart. And then, finally, he would die like everyone else. It would just take some time. He glanced at Roach who always seemed the happiest when she was asleep, and then he stared at his own hands for a while. There were steps in the woods and they were coming closer. Two sets of steps, a man’s and a horse’s.  
  
“Come closer,” Geralt said, when the man should have been in the hearing distance. Nothing happened. The slow rhythm of the footsteps didn’t falter. Maybe the man was deaf. That would have been just great. Geralt hadn’t had a conversation with anyone except Roach in weeks and when someone would finally come to him, they could just stare at each other and sign. He always got misunderstood when he tried signing. He straightened his back and waited.  
  
“Hi,” someone said, and the voice went through him before he had time to recognize it. And then he did.  
  
He jumped onto his feet and stared at the woods. The man was still hidden by the trees. “Hi,” he said. “I’m here.”  
  
“Thank god,” the man said. “I’ve been walking for ages. I haven’t slept in a real bed for a week now and it’s too much for me these days, Geralt. I just can’t do it anymore. I like the thought of it, you know, the fresh air, the wind on my face, the excitement of wondering if some kind of a monster is going to find me during the night and eat me. But I’m too old for it. I was thinking that if I didn’t see you today, I might have to go back.”  
  
“You probably shouldn’t be travelling alone,” Geralt said. The wind carried the scent of the human to him but he still couldn’t see the man. “I wouldn’t even worry about a monster. There’re wolves in these woods, too.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I’ve learned a few tricks to keep them from wanting to eat me. And really, I’m becoming a little tired of life. No one wants to hear an old man singing.”  
  
“You can’t be that old,” Geralt said. He could see the figure walking to him now. His horse was following him. “It’s only been –“  
  
“Twenty-eight years. Geralt, that’s a lot. For me.”  
  
Geralt bit his lip.  
  
“You still look the same, though.”  
  
“Not really. It’s just dark in here.”  
  
“You haven’t changed a bit. _Goddamn_. I knew it would only make me sadder if I saw you.”  
  
_Then why did you come,_ Geralt thought and took a deep breath. The man stopped twenty feet away from him. There were years on his face, but his eyes were the same. “Hi, Jaskier.”  
  
“Hi, Geralt,” Jaskier said.  
  
“Come here,” Geralt said. “Come to sit. You’ve been following me for days. I have water, and I might have some wine. It’s not good but it’ll get you warm. And you can say hi to Roach – shit, I should introduce you to her. Roach -,” he turned to her. She was awake and watching them warily. “This is Jaskier. Jaskier, this is my Roach.”  
  
“The new one.”  
  
“The one after the one after the new one,” Geralt said. “It’s a tough life for a horse.”  
  
“Yes, well,” Jaskier said and then cleared his throat. The Jaskier Geralt had known had talked constantly, or perhaps that was just what Geralt remembered of him. He had thought Jaskier would make him mad with all that talk. But later, when Jaskier had been gone, Geralt had hated the silence.  
  
“I’ll get you the wine.”  
  
“You don’t have to do that. Geralt –“  
  
“Come here,” Geralt said, “sit down. My bedroll is… not clean, but it’s better than the ground.”  
  
“If you sit with me,” Jaskier said but walked past the fire, slowly. He looked older from this close. Geralt stopped with the bottle of wine in one hand and the other clenching helplessly. He was terrible at goodbyes, and this was the opposite of a goodbye, which seemed to be worse. “Come on, Geralt. It’s just me,” Jaskier said and then sat down on Geralt’s bedroll. His joints were cracking. Geralt sat down next to him and gave him the bottle of wine, and he opened it and took a sip. Then he gave it back to Geralt. Geralt stared at it for a moment before drinking. There was no way he could feel the warmth of Jaskier’s hands still lingering on the glass bottle.  
  
“Why were you looking for me?” Geralt asked, staring at the fire.  
  
“I wasn’t, exactly,” Jaskier said. His voice was lower now, and much hoarser, and nervous even though he was clearly trying to hide it. Still he didn’t sound as nervous as Geralt. “I heard you were nearby. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Do you remember the golden dragon?”  
  
“Of course I remember the golden dragon.” He wondered how much Jaskier remembered of how the things had ended there.  
  
“When he came to us in the inn, he said something like, I don’t know, that it would be his last adventure. The last time he could feel alive before he died.”  
  
Geralt shook his head. “I can’t be your last adventure.”  
  
“Why not?” Jaskier asked. “I’m old. You don’t know what that’s like. I’m not tired of life, not really, I’m just… tired. And everyone I loved is dead.”  
  
Geralt rubbed his nose. “So, you…”  
  
“Never had children. But I lived with someone for a long time.”  
  
“Good,” Geralt said, clearing his throat. “Great. That’s… that’s good.”  
  
“I wasn’t sure I would come to talk to you, though,” Jaskier said. “I think maybe I told myself that I would follow you from the distance for a while and then I would lose you and go back home. But I got closer to you. And then I began to think that I would hate myself I didn’t at least say hello.”  
  
“I’m glad you did,” Geralt said. “I’m glad you’re here. Jaskier…”  
  
“Do you have anything with the wine?” Jaskier asked, taking the bottle from Geralt’s hands. “Because I’m kind of hungry.”  
  
“You were always hungry.”  
  
“Well, I’m just a human. Obviously.”  
  
Geralt took a deep breath and then found biscuits in his bag. He gave them to Jaskier and didn’t linger in the way their fingers brushed, or if he lingered, Jaskier lingered just as much.  
  
“These are really bad, Geralt,” Jaskier said, eating the biscuits.  
  
“I wasn’t expecting company.”  
  
“You still don’t like people, then?”  
  
“I liked you,” Geralt said.  
  
Jaskier drank more of the wine. Geralt glanced at him. It seemed like a bad idea to get Jaskier drunk like this, out in the cold, alone expect for Geralt, who wasn’t much of a company. Never had been.  
  
“I liked you, Jaskier,” Geralt said. “It took me some time to realize that.”  
  
“Like, for how long?” Jaskier asked, not looking at him.  
  
“Ten years, perhaps.”  
  
Jaskier laughed hoarsely. The sound of it made something crush in Geralt’s heart in a way that hurt more than it gave pleasure. _Shit._ He had become sentimental in his old age.  
  
“I was busy,” Geralt said. It wasn’t an excuse, but he had a feeling they both knew it. “With the war and… with the child. And everything that came after. It was easier not to think about you. Because I was an asshole and I made a mistake and I couldn’t have fixed it, anyway.”  
  
“You were an asshole,” Jaskier said, glancing at him. “But a mistake?”  
  
“You travelled with me for a long time,” Geralt said. “Anyone else would have gotten tired of my bullshit.”  
  
“I got tired. It was just that I…”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
“I didn’t think you did.”  
  
“You were wrong about that,” Geralt said. “It’s not like people say. We have… feelings.”  
  
“I never doubted that. I just didn’t think…”  
  
“We should have gone to the coast, like you said. We should have gone there. We could have, I don’t know, stayed for a while. You would’ve made your songs and I would’ve killed monsters.”  
  
“That’s a nice thought, Geralt. A nice dream.”  
  
“We would’ve gotten a house,” Geralt said to the tired flames in the fire that was slowly going out, “a little house, somewhere peaceful. But not too peaceful, because there should have been monsters. We could have had a life. For a while, at least.”  
  
“Together,” Jaskier said in an odd voice. “That’s what you mean.”  
  
“That’s what I mean.”  
  
“You know I would have gladly taken you to my bed.”  
  
“I figured,” Geralt said. “Ten years too late.”  
  
“That wasn’t what I wanted from you, I mean, that wasn’t what I wanted most. It never was the point. I didn’t travel with you for the hope of it. But I just… I don’t know what it is about you, Geralt.”  
  
“It’s the onion.”  
  
“I wanted to be with you in any way you’d let me.”  
  
“That’s…” Geralt rubbed his closed eyes with the heels of his hands. “I didn’t know what to do with that kind of love, Jaskier. I think I still wouldn’t.”  
  
“Haven’t you lived long enough to learn?” Jaskier asked, but he sounded sad.  
  
“I don’t think that’s the kind of a thing you learn with time,” Geralt said slowly. He had been thinking about it. Not often. But ‘not often’ for twenty-eight years was quite a lot. “I think the only way to learn what to do with love is to have love. And to… use it. Because you can’t learn to love by avoiding it. Or just taking it instead of giving it back. And what time does to us…” He glanced at Jaskier. Perhaps Jaskier thought he was being rude. Time was different for them. He was certain he was more afraid of time than Jaskier and almost as certain that there was no way to explain that. It took almost a hundred and fifty years to get to know what he meant by being afraid of time. “I think what time does to us it that it takes something from us. Our courage, maybe. Time stretches beyond us and we get smaller and we lose the courage to hope.”  
  
“You’ve been reading poems,” Jaskier said.  
  
“Well, I once knew a very good bard,” Geralt said. “He showed me that words have power.”  
  
“He was a little dumb, though,” Jaskier said. “Geralt?”  
  
“Yes?” Geralt asked and took one of the biscuits. It was terrible. He wondered why he hadn’t realized that before.  
  
“Did you mean it?”  
  
He knew what Jaskier was talking about and wished he didn’t. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“I guess I thought I meant it.”  
  
“That’s not good enough,” Jaskier said. “Geralt, did you mean it? Did you mean it when you told me to get lost? What if I had –“  
  
“What if _I_ had come back to you?” Geralt asked. “You had come back to me many times. It was my turn. I just… I didn’t have it in me. I was young and stupid and it took me some time to realize what I had lost.”  
  
“You were a hundred years old.”  
  
“Young and stupid,” Geralt said and took a deep breath. “Do you like the wine?”  
  
“I like the company,” Jaskier said. He didn’t sound exactly drunk, but his voice had lost some of its edge. Geralt wished he could have lost some of his, too, but it seemed he was stuck with it.  
  
But at least he had become better at recognizing some things over the years. “You’re cold and tired.”  
  
“Well, if you were an old man chasing after an old fling, you’d be too,” Jaskier said.  
  
Geralt bit his lip. “An old fling –“  
  
“You’re still pretty,” Jaskier said, watching him with soft eyes. He felt naked in a way he hadn’t for a long time. “I haven’t been pretty for such a long time that I’ve forgotten what it feels like. But, Geralt, you were always more than pretty, always more than strong, always more than…”  
  
“A killer. I doubt that.”  
  
“I don’t. I knew you. I followed you around even though you tried to get rid of me. I knew you. And I can’t understand how someone with your strength could be so gentle. I don’t think anyone else could. You’re the kindest man I ever met, Geralt.”  
  
Geralt snorted.  
  
“And I met many men,” Jaskier said, “many, many men.”  
  
“Don’t tell me about it.”  
  
“There’s not much to tell. I never stopped making songs about you, by the way. Did you know that?”  
  
“I’ve heard a few.”  
  
“Did you like them?”  
  
“They were…” Sometimes hearing them had felt like getting stabbed in the heart with a blunt sword. “They made me sad.”  
  
“I tried to follow you that way. The only way I could.”  
  
“I know.” _Shit._ His hands were trembling. He leaned his hands against his knees and then, after a moment, he reached for Jaskier with his right hand and put it on the man’s thigh. Jaskier was shaking a little, like an old man in a cold night, sitting by the fire with an old fling. “You can’t know how old I feel,” he said to Jaskier.  
  
Jaskier put his hand on Geralt’s and kept it there. “I can guess.”  
  
“Can you smell the winter? Because I can.”  
  
“I only smell the onion.”  
  
“Death and destiny,” Geralt said. “Heroics and… heartbreak.”  
  
“It’s just onion, Geralt,” Jaskier said. “It’s just you and I.”  
  
“Do you have somewhere to go?”  
  
“Not really,” Jaskier said, squeezing Geralt’s fingers lightly. “What, are you trying to suggest something?”  
  
“I think we should go to the coast,” Geralt said in a quiet voice, but he knew Jaskier would hear him. “I’ve wanted to go there. We could stay for a while. Work out what pleases us.”  
  
“I might die.”  
  
“You were always going to die.”  
  
Jaskier took a deep breath. “I’m not sure if I can take heartbreak. Not at my age.”  
  
“Me, neither,” Geralt said, “I mean, I know I can’t. But I think I’m too afraid not to try.”  
  
“It would be nice to see the sea.”  
  
“I’ll find you better biscuits.”  
  
“Geralt,” Jaskier said, patting his wrist. “Can I sleep in your bedroll?”  
  
“Of course. I’m sorry about the smell, though.”  
  
“You already know that I like it, you bastard,” Jaskier said. He looked like he was trying to smile. “Well, come on, then. Tell me what’s your favorite of my new songs.”  
  
“I’m definitely not going to tell you that. You’d never stop singing it at me.”  
  
“It was all for you, Geralt.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I’m an idiot.”  
  
“We’re both idiots.”  
  
“You’re still pretty, though.”  
  
“You should get some sleep, old man,” Geralt said, pulled his hand away and went to put the fire down.


End file.
